Wanted: Canonized or Not

Wanted: Canonized or Not

Fiction recommendations needed for an avid reader who enjoys detective mysteries, Victorian and international literature, and fun YA reads.

Recent pleasurable reads include: The Sunday Philosophy Club, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows, A Great and Terrible Beauty, The Well of Lost Plots, and Jane Eyre.

Please address all recommendations to [contact email has been removed].

Currently Reading

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey

B is making me read this.  I’m sure its a great book, but so far I’m having a really hard time getting into it.  I’ve had a little too much non-fiction lately, so this will probably be on my Currently Reading list for some time.

I’m in desperate need of some fiction recommendations!

June Reads

Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: this book is amazing.  I think this review from YouthWorker Journal summs it up nicely: “Rob Bell is able to draw more depth out of the New Testament than I thought possible.I would have finished this book in record time if I didn’t have to put it down so often just so I could sit back and process what I was learning. Buy two copies, one for you and one to pass around.”

How to Read Literature Like a Professor, by Thomas C. Foster

Do you remember that Intro to Literary Studies class you took Sophomore year?  This book is way better.  Foster is actually interesting.  And (bonus!) you can put it down anytime you like.   But seriously, this is a really good book, and not just for aspiring professors and literophiles.  Even if you’re a recreational reader Foster gives great insight into figuring out what authors mean when they have their characters do…well, pretty much anything.

The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde

Ok, so I’ve read this before. Twice. Its just so good.  And besides, this time I didn’t actually read it, I listened to the audiobook which, incidentally, made me like it even more.  The simple fact that Fforde makes Edward Rochester save Thursday Next (the novel’s main character) from a certain death by stepping outside the realms of fiction and into 1985 Great Britain makes this a must-read.  By now you’re probably thinking this is a less-than-believable book. Personally, I think it comes close to putting Harry Potter to shame.  Close.

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë

After rereading (-ish) The Eyre Affair, I was inspired to reread the original book.   Yes, that’s right, I own the Norton Critical Edition.  And yes, I owned it before I needed it for that Romantic Lit class I took my Junior year; thank you for choosing that edition, Dr. Pierce, you saved me $20 which I probably wasted on beer or cat food or a copy of The Canterbury Tales or something.

I had forgotten just how crazy this book is.  Secret spouses, houses burning down, random relatives dying and leaving people £20.000.  Its all so very…Romantic.  And how can you not love that?

Wanting all the Right Things, by Shirin Taber

June has been a good literary month for me, because this is another awesome book.  Taber’s frank tone and friendly approach make you feel as though you’re sitting at your kitchen table getting sound advice from an older and (much) wiser friend.  This book has given me not only a lot to think about, but is so well-researched that I have all new ideas of other things I want to read.  Best of all, though, is Taber’s own honesty in admitting how she struggles with so many of the same things she writes about.

Learn to Cultivate Peace

“Learn to cultivate peace. And you can do this by learning to turn a deaf ear to your own ambitious thoughts. Or haven’t you learned yet that the strivings of the human minds not only impair the health of your body, but also bring dryness to the soul. You can actually consume yourself in too much striving…Your peace and inner sweetness can be destroyed by a restless mind.” -François Fénelon

Currently, I struggle with an inability to relax. B can spend entire Sunday afternoons watching F1 on SPEED, stretched out on the couch with the dog, a quilt, and a beer. Meanwhile, I’m running around like something is on fire: doing dishes, laundry, vacuuming the bedroom, making endless lists of things I have to get done someday…

I envy his ability to chill.

And its not because he doesn’t have things to do; he’s busier than I am.

Its because I just can’t seem to let myself relax. I’m consumed by this idea that I have to do everything. That being busy will somehow make my life better, more significant, more fulfilled. That somehow, making long to-do lists is going to make me Superwoman, or at least a better person.

I’m beginning to figure out that it won’t.

That doing these things is actually getting me further away from where I want to be.  I want to be the kind of person who can enjoy the beautiful things in life: summer evenings, a beautiful sunrise, an afternoon in the park, quiet moments.

Those things don’t happen on lists.

What Does This Say About Us?

“When we are single and young we  naturally make friends and are often open to new friendships…But as we age, become busy, worry about finances, and raise kids, we tend to start shutting down relationally.  Sure, we care for people all day long, but it doesn’t mean we really care about them.  We too easily forget how we felt when we were strangers, starting over again.”

From “Wanting all the Right Things”, by Shirin Taber

No, really, what does this say about us?

Can I Get My Money Back?

My life is so like a movie!

You know that movie where everything goes wrong, the protagonist can’t get a handle on her life and absolutely nothing good happens to her? The one where you return the DVD to Blockbuster and wish you could ask for your money back because you’re more depressed when its over than when it started?

Yeah. That’s the movie my life is like.

I spend $200 on gas every month and 2 hours per shift worked to commute to a job that pays me next to nothing, my other boss (aka my mother) just informed me that she will no longer be needing my services because she doesn’t “feel like paying” me anymore. I can’t for the life of me even get hired at something that sucks. I have absolutely NO money, which is something that means nothing to my student loan people, so I still have to pay.

Basically, I’m eating Ramen all the time, drinking nothing but water, and wishing for the life of me that I could stop getting sick and having to pay exorbitant amounts of money for the urgent care.

There’s not a book in the world that could make this better.

I never thought I’d say that.

B and Rowlf are seriously the only good things in my life right now.

Dope-ing

I was just reading this on Donald Miller’s blog about his cross-country bike ride:

Some unfortunate lowlights:

• The doping controversy: As you know, cycling and steroids have had a long, dark relationship. Our team is, unfortunately, no exception. Each day we are drug tested and on Wednesday of last week several of our team members tested positive. After a long, last sprint to the finish tuesday, the team suspected that Mindy Gunter was doping and sure enough that evening she tested positive. And last night Mike Barrow found uncommon strength at the end of the ride in order to finish first on the longest ride of the year. Mike is fifty-five and so we made him pee in a cup.

Do pray for us and the steroid controversy as it has the potential to ruin the team and negatively affect our campaign. Also, if anybody has a testing kit we could really use one. Right now we just hold the cup up to the light and smell it and swish it around like a glass of wine. Then we go with our gut.

I Blame the DIY Network on Cable

I figured out something today.  Its a simple thing that I probably should have had figured out before, but it finally clicked when I was sitting on the floor of my closet being upset.

I can’t do this on my own.

And that’s ok.

I don’t know why it took me this long to figure that out, but there you go.

In spite of this American DIY mindset that I’ve had drilled into my brain, I don’t think we were made to go it alone.  Otherwise, we’d be better at it.

The Sisterhood of Rainbow Brite

Me: My life has gotten so boring. I think my writers are on strike.

Katharine: Mine too. Well, actually, the only ones working are the ones who like to make me seem crazy.

Me: You are crazy.

Katharine: Shut up.

Me: ::giggle::

Katharine: Oh wait!! I almost forgot! I got engaged to Mickey Mouse! We’re getting married in three months!

Me: I’m totally going to be your bridesmaid, right?

Katharine: Of course!

Me: Phew! See?? We’re not as boring as we thought!

Katharine: I know! We just need to talk to each other more!

Me: Holy crap! I have a brilliant and totally geeky idea. Promise you won’t laugh at me!

Katharine: I can’t promise that, you know that.

Me: We totally have to trade the Rainbow Brite shirt back and forth, like in The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants!

Katharine: I’m not laughing.

Me: No! Its awesome! We can both have the shirt and we can both get non-bill mail!

Katharine: Yes!!

Me: We are so brilliant!! And not boring!!

I wish we were kidding….

Velvet Elvis

I just finished Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis. Not less than 60 seconds ago I closed the book, looked at the cover, and sighed with satisfaction. I got this book about a year ago, off the free shelf at the bookstore where I worked at the time. It was a book I had been meaning to buy, because Donald Miller references it so many times in his books, but every time I went to buy it I chickened out. Whenever I read about it in Miller’s books, Velvet Elvis seemed like a book I would really love, so my complete inability to buy it baffled me. Then, one bleary-eyed 5am at the bookstore, as I stumbled into the back room to clock in and begin unloading boxes from the trucks, I happened to glance at the freebie shelf. There wasn’t much on it at the time, a skinny volume entitled Europe on 5 Dollars a Day (there are approximately 3 square feet of Europe where this is possible), several pre-releases of Nora Roberts novels, and a white hardback book with “Velvet Elvis” in small orange letters. I clocked in, snagged the book, threw it in my locker and unpacked boxes of books for what seemed like days.

It wasn’t until I was planning my escape from the bookstore and into a new job arena that I remembered the book in my locker, shoved behind a sweater and my water bottle. On my last day, I cleaned out my locker and the contents took up home in my trunk for another few months. It wasn’t until about January of this year that the book made its way onto my floor and it was last month before I began reading it. I was skeptical at first. I don’t really like books that are written by people who have their own churches, much less mega-churches that have an average attendance of 11,000 people.

I was wrong. This book is amazing. I should have read it a year ago, three years ago really. I think I’m going to read it again before the summer is up. Its that good. I pretty much love everything this man has to say, and had to stop myself from writing the entire book in my notebook as I was taking quote notes.

Here are a few of my favorites:

“Inspired words have a way of getting under our skin and taking on a life of their own. They work on us. We started out reading them, but they end up reading us.” (p.60)

“…Their story is our story. We see ourselves in them. The story is true for us because it happened and because it happens. It is an accurate description of how life is. The reason the stories in the Bible have resonated with so many people over the years is that they have seen themselves in these stories.” (p.59)

Great article on Rob Bell.

Shebeen

shebeen (shuh-BEEN) noun

An unlicensed drinking establishment.

[From Irish sibin, diminutive of seibe (mug/mugful). The word is popular in the south of Africa and in Scotland and Ireland.]

On June 16, James Joyce aficionados the world over celebrate Bloomsday. The day is named after advertising salesman Leopold Bloom, protagonist of Joyce’s novel Ulysses. The entirety of this book recounts an ordinary day, June 16, 1904, as various characters go about their ways in Dublin, Ireland. If those 700+ pages are too much, check out this illustrated and irreverent summary of the book.

Great Book Quotes

“Beware of the man of one book.”  -Thomas Aquinas

“A library is a hospital for the mind.” -Anonymous

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”  -Joseph Addison

“She is too fond of books, and it has turned her brain.”  -Louisa May Alcott

“When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just 12 ounces of paper and ink and glue – you sell him a whole new life.”  -Christopher Morley

“To read, when one does so of one’s own free will, is to make a volitional statement, to cast a vote; it is to posit an elsewhere and set off toward it. And like any traveling, reading is at once a movement and a comment of sorts about the place one has left. To open a book voluntarily is at some level to remark the insufficiency either of one’s life or of one’s orientation toward it.” -Sven Birkerts

“He that loves a book will never want a faithful friend, a wholesome counselor, a cheerful companion, an effectual comforter.  By study, by reading, by thinking, one may innocently divert and pleasantly entertain himself, as in all weathers, as in all fortunes.”  -Barrow

“The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.” -Abraham Lincoln

“To read a writer is for me not merely to get an idea of what he says, but to go off with him and travel in his company.” -Andre Gide

“The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.” -Anthony Trollope

“The ability to read awoke inside me some long dormant craving to be mentally alive.”  -Malcom X

“We read to know we are not alone.” -C.S. Lewis

“No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance.”  -Confucius

“The reading of all good books is like conversation with the finest men of the past centuries.” -Descartes

“The more you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”  -Dr. Seuss, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!

“This will never be a civilized country until we expend more money for books than we do for chewing gum.” -Elbert Hubbard

Jackanapes

Word a Day:

jackanapes (JAK-uh-nayps) noun

An impertinent conceited person.

Probably from Jack Napes, from “jack (man) of an ape”. This word was the nickname of William de la Pole (1396-1450), Duke of Suffolk, as his badge was a clog and chain, as might be tied to an ape.

Mark Twain once said, “When angry, count to four; when very angry, swear.” While swearing is considered uncouth and vulgar, it has its place and purpose. It helps provide an emotional release and clears the system. Isn’t a verbal venting of emotions better than a physical manifestation?

You don’t have to rely on those worn-out four-letter terms to inflict rude remarks on the offending party. With careful selection of words, it’s possible to elevate insults to an art form. Why not use this week’s exquisite words for one of those times when nothing less will do?

Weird Book Facts

I love weird facts, so here are a few about books, language and literature.

• “Go,” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
• For several decades the well-known Belgian mystery writer Georges Simenon wrote, on the average, one Novel every eleven days. Besides the more than 230 Novels he penned under his own name, Simenon wrote 300 other books under a pseudonym.
• The origin of the Latin word for book, liber, comes from the Romans who used the thin layer found between the bark and the wood (the liber) before the times of parchment. The English word comes from the Danish word for book, bog, meaning birch tree, as the early people of Denmark wrote on birch bark.
• An original copy of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales sold for a record £4,621,500 (9 times the expected price) at Christies, London, UK on 8th July 1998 by a private collector. The book was the first major work printed in England by William Caxton, in 1477.
• The Nursery Rhyme “Old King Cole” is based on a real king and a real historical event. King Cole is supposed to have been an actual monarch of Britain who ruled around 200 A.D.
• The Library of Congress, Washington DC, USA contains 28 million books and has 532 miles of shelving. If you were driving at a constant 70 mph in a car it would take you just under 8 hours to pass them all. And thats without stopping to go to the toilet!
• Johannes Gutenberg was not the first man to produce a book printed with movable type. Printed books were made in China five hundred years before their appearance in Europe. These books were set in movable type made with metal or porcelain characters, were printed on paper (which also was invented in China centuries before it reached the West), and were bound in a manner much like contemporary volumes, complete with title page and cover.
• Between 1986 and 1996, Brazilian author Jose Carlos Ryoki de Alpoim Inoue had a massive 1,058 novels published. He writes westerns, science fiction and thrillers. Does he ever eat?
• The sentence “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog”, uses every letter in the alphabet.
• A 15 letter word that can be spelled without repeating a letter is uncopyrightable.
• The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year by the weight of books.
• The dot over the letter “i” is called a tittle.
• There are no words in the dictionary that rhyme with orange, purple and silver.
• On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year.

At That Place Again

I’m at that place again. Where I love the semblance of stability in my life but am still desperate for adventures abroad. Several of my friends are currently living abroad, in China, Peru, Spain, the UK, Romania. Hearing about their adventures makes me so jealous that I can barely see straight. I’m desperate for culture, language, adventure. I’ve never loved living in Atlanta, but at the moment the thought of spending another year here makes me feel smothered.

And then, I look around at my wonderful boyfriend and the adorable dog and the great house I live in and I think about how selfish and awful and ungrateful these thoughts make me feel. In my heart I know that this time here, in a city I do not love filled with people I do not desire to know, is meant to make me feel uncomfortable. It is meant to make me step out of my comfort zone. Moving to Spain, or China, or the UK would feel more comfortable to me than staying in my own country. Staying here is a test of my ability to make something out of nothing, to be a better version of myself.

I hope that someday, I’ll be able to leave and come back to find that I have missed this place.